A very powerful piece of writing by Bryan Forbes

[Nick]

John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton first Baron Acton (1834–1902). historian and moralist

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."


William Pitt, the Elder, The Earl of Chatham and British Prime Minister from 1766 to 1778

"Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it"

 

[Keith]

Extremely profound and relevant anecdotal information Nick, but does that knowledge in some way excuse him from being a complete & total cunt?

 

[Nick]

Extremely profound and relevant anecdotal information Nick, but does that knowledge in some way excuse him from being a complete & total cunt?

Keith,

Not having any Northern roots, I would have put it more along the lines of his father was a bachelor, but no it doesn't excuse him.

I still believe when he first came to power he did have all the best intentions, must be a bit hard staying in touch with the common man when your wife has the earnings potiential of a QC and is capable of this:-

12/5/2008

Thrifty Cherie loves nothing more than snaffling armfuls of freebies. From £40,000 holidays to £2 mugs, she has gained a reputation for getting something for nothing.

She astonished staff at a clothes store in Melbourne by leaving with 68 items worth £2,000 after being invited to pick out "a few things" as gifts.

A shop assistant was sent to a warehouse for more stock. Staff needed five boxes to pack the jumpers, tops, underwear, pyjamas, jackets, jeans, belts, bags, and an alarm clock.

Since 1997, the Blairs and their children have enjoyed £775,000 of free holidays as guests of wealthy hosts including Sir Cliff Richard and Silvio Berlusconi.

There was an outcry last year when British Airways gave them £6,000 of free upgrades for their Christmas flights to Florida.

They were on their way to Bee Gee Robin Gibb's £5million, 10-bedroom mansion in Miami which would have cost £40,000.

Cherie had the bill for her £275 a time haircuts sent to the cashstrapped Labour Party when Tony was PM. In January 2000, on her first day as a criminal court judge, Cherie had to pay a £10 fine for travelling without a valid rail ticket. In December 2002, she allowed Aussie conman Peter Foster to negotiate a £69,000 discount on two flats in Bristol.

In 2005 she addressed a £380-a-head dinner in New Zealand calling her hosts "Australians", and accepted £15,000 for a 90-minute talk in Washington while Tony was urging President George Bush to cancel African debt.

 

[Keith]

Yes, it's a sorry tale isn't it? Still, behind every bad man there's a worse woman with a dickhead father.....who was nothing to write about either. Anthony Booth the scouse actor famous for his part in "till Death us do Part" became a degenerate alcoholic and decided that he wanted to kill his wife. He met an ex SAS member in a pub near his home who gave him some advice on how he might achieve it.

In a completely drunken stupor he piled full paraffin cans against the apartment door where his wife was, lit a match, failed to escape and blew himself almost to hell. (Wikipedia has it that it was an 'accident' and that 'he was trying to break into his flat when he fell into a drum of paraffin') as you do of course I mean, keep a drum of paraffin outside your door. Perfectly normal.

His wife was unharmed but Booth suffered 3rd degree burns over nearly all his body and was hospitalised for some considerable time.

 

[David Morton]

2068. Think about it. That's five more since last you looked.
The joke is this comes under the banner of Operation Enduring Freedom.

 

[David Morton]

Please support this petition if you agree and pass this on to others so that they might also have the opportunity of doing so.


<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top>For those of you who may wish to add your signature in favour of this review.

http://soldiers-pensions.co.uk/?q=petition

Hi all. PLEASE can you all sign this petition for soldiers pensions at the above link and pass on to all of your friends and families. For those of you who dont know Sgt Matty Telford was killed 3rd Nov 2009 by a rogue Afghan Policeman. Now you will all remember him from the news as 'Sergeant' Matty Telford but the army give his children his pension at corporal rate because he was sergeant for less than a year. The unfairness of this is that he was promoted so he could do this job in Afghan and had he not been promoted he would have been doing a different job and may have been with us today. After this petition was started it came to light that this is happening to a lot of our brave heroes families.

PLEASE help by signing the petition!

Thanks
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

 

[Keith]

No problem with that at all David. Signed and passed on.

 

[Graham]

Keith, same as that.


David, Thanks for the link. Last time I checked, when you were given a rank, you WERE that rank.

It's the WRONG kind of money saving. Thin end of the wedge bollocks that does no-one any good...

Signature done.

 

[David Morton]

I think they are still poncing about using and promoting people to Acting Ranks that a particular theatre demands - and even sometimes when the requirement finishes and the person has not covered themselves in glory , demoting those same people back to their Substansive Rank. This only seems to apply to the N.C.O. ranks however as the Comissioned ranks usually retain the new status even after the requirement finishes. I think there might also be a pay difference between Acting and Substansive ranks as well which I find abhorrant. If a man is deemed fit to be promoted then he should be payed accordingly, he should retain the new rank, and he should be substansive from day one.

 

[Graham]

I think they are still poncing about using and promoting people to Acting Ranks that a particular theatre demands - and even sometimes when the requirement finishes and the person has not covered themselves in glory , demoting those same people back to their Substansive Rank. This only seems to apply to the N.C.O. ranks however as the Comissioned ranks usually retain the new status even after the requirement finishes. I think there might also be a pay difference between Acting and Substansive ranks as well which I find abhorrant. If a man is deemed fit to be promoted then he should be payed accordingly, he should retain the new rank, and he should be substansive from day one.

David,

Simply could not agree with you more. If you're good enough, then you ARE good enough...

Graham.

 

[David Morton]

Thanks Graham,
Please sign the petition and also write a personal letter to your MP and the PM about this travesty. So many people who are NOT in harms way
but are paid from the public purse are trousering far more money than any Soldier, Sailor, Marine or Airman ever sees in a life time.
Camerons post code is SW1A 2AA.

 

[David Morton]

If you want to rattle your own MP's cage a bit try some of this:

<DT>What should I do if my MP (or other representative) doesn't reply? <DD>There are lots of things you can do to follow up your enquiry if you get no reply, or an unsatisfactory reply, from your representative.

• See your MP or other representative in person, raise your issue with them at their local "surgery". Call your MP's local constituency office or your representative's party office to arrange this. You can find the number in your local phone book, or on your MP's website.
• Make sure you have taken all other courses of action to raise your issue, or to get your problem solved. For example, contact the relevant central Government department, and relevant officers at your local councils. Ask your local Citizens Advice Bureau for advice.
• Write a letter to your local newspaper about your issue, and your dissatisfaction with your MP, MEP or councillor.
• Write a letter to your other representatives, such as your MP, your local councillors, MEPs or regional representatives, if appropriate. You can do this for free using WriteToThem.
• Complain about your representative to their local party. Contact the local party office. The local party has the power not to select your MP as a candidate for the next General Election.
• Use PledgeBank (made by the same charity that makes WriteToThem) to gather a group of people with the same issue as you, and solve the problem together.

</DD>

 

[David Morton]

Two thousand and seventy one of which three hundred and thirty five were Brits.
Thats 2071 and 335.
When will they ever learn.

 

[Graham]

And what about the Territorial who volunteered to go to fight with the full timers... Shot twice and given one of our highest distinctions, lost an arm in the process at the age of 26...

Because he is a Territorial, he gets an £18 pension per week.....

Makes my blood boil. It's disgusting the way we treat our armed forces.

 

[Benjy]

I have just spent the last five hours reading the thread front to back and I agree wholeheartedly with it. These useless wastes of oxygen need to by held accountable for their fu*kups.
DM, you have PM

Cheers, ben

 

[David Morton]

Three hundred and thirty seven from the UK, as of yesterday.
Two thousand and eighty five total.

 

[Ian Anderson]

How many more are needed to pay for the drug crop?

Ian

 

[Pete McCluskey.]

A SOLDIER who fought alongside Digger Jared MacKinney when he was killed in Afghanistan says his mate would still be alive if the troops had adequate fire support and better intelligence. <!-- google_ad_section_end(name=story_introduction) -->

<!-- // .story-intro --><!-- google_ad_section_start(name=story_body, weight=high) -->In a scathing email sent from the frontline and obtained by The Courier-Mail , the Digger, who cannot be named, said it was a miracle that five or six more Australians were not killed in the Battle of Derapet.
And, far from being an ambush, the two groups of Australian and Afghan soldiers were expecting to be hit as they patrolled the green zone at Deh Rawood, 60km west of Tarin Kowt, on August 24.
The soldier's email accused the Australian Army of exposing troops to unnecessary risks.
The Digger, from the Brisbane-based 6th Battalion, estimated the enemy body count at about 20.
"That contact would have been over before Jared died if they gave us f-----g mortars," he said.



<!-- // .story-sidebar -->Lance Corporal MacKinney's widow Becky gave birth to their second child, a son, Noah, only five hours after his funeral service in Brisbane on October 10.
The soldier said his section had been in combat 100m from the same spot two days earlier and reports from sappers clearing bombs on the morning of the battle had stated that civilians were fleeing the valley.
"That told us it was going to be on," he said. The patrol's first big surprise was the enemy force's size.
No intelligence reports had prepared the two sections of about 24 men for a confrontation with up to 100 enemy soldiers attacking from multiple positions as close as 80m away.
"We were at times pinned down by a massive rate of fire but we stuck to it," he wrote.
"We are not operating in platoon size groups, so this is hard when you can't manoeuvre sections against them, but we tried to fix them so we could destroy them with air assets."
The second shock for the Diggers, who were forced to withdraw as they started to run low on ammunition, was the complete lack of support from artillery, mortars or aircraft.
"The army has let us down mate and I am f-----g disgusted."
The soldier, from the 1st Mentoring Task Force, said an unmanned spy plane flew above the battlefield pinpointing enemy positions throughout the three-hour contact, but effective fire support had still failed to materialise.
"Every (c###t) is too scared about collateral damage."
He also revealed Lance Corporal MacKinney died almost half an hour into the battle.
"They were copping rounds the whole time, all the way through to carrying him on the stretcher and loading him on the AME (Aero Medical Evacuation chopper)," he said.
The Digger also slammed the lack of air support provided by a US Apache helicopter that flew just two offensive strafing runs all day.
The soldier's blunt email has been circulated to senior officers, including Chief of Defence, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston.
According to the email, most fire support came from Australian Light Armoured Vehicles (ASLAVs) providing overwatch to the joint Australian-Afghan patrol from a nearby hillside.
The soldier's plea is strongly supported by retired counter-insurgency expert Major-General Jim Molan, a coalition operational commander in Iraq, who said the Government should immediately send Abrams tanks and Army Tiger attack helicopters before more soldiers die

 

[David Morton]

2106 deaths on operation Enduring Freedom.
Thats 21 (twenty one) more than a week ago. Averaging three per day.

 

[Keith]

A SOLDIER who fought alongside Digger Jared MacKinney when he was killed in Afghanistan says his mate would still be alive if the troops had adequate fire support and better intelligence. <!-- google_ad_section_end(name=story_introduction) -->

<!-- // .story-intro --><!-- google_ad_section_start(name=story_body, weight=high) -->

'If' they were still at home in Oz, he could have been killed in a drunken fight.

If the local buses around here had a thinner offside 'A' pillar, then my best mate Paul would not have been hit by a bus and killed last week.

Where do you stop with 'if' ?

'If' they sent in 100 Chinooks to airlift them all out, at least one would crash and kill all the occupants, and within 2 years, perhaps 5% would have died from other causes.

Better to die fighting with your mates and a gun in your hand than in a senseless road accident or drunken brawl.

And lastly, Trooper Jared MacKinney would still be alive 'IF' the Taliban hadn't shot him.